Took a page from the Radiohead playbook here and had my laptop read some lyrics to you (thanks, American Academy of Pediatrics!). I also used my new dobro I got for Christmas, and my daughter’s toy piano. Happy new year everyone: Resolutions

Patricia Santangelo, the mother of five who’s being sued by the RIAA for downloading songs is going to be representing herself in court. She’s already shelled out $24,000 in legal expenses and her lawyers agree that it’s in her best interests to represent herself now. She claims that she has no knowledge of how the songs got on her computer, and while she could settle for a few grand, she doesn’t believe she did anything wrong. This is the first time anyone has stood up against these RIAA lawsuits, all the rest have been settled out of court.

She’s very brave, I’m not sure I’d have the backbone to spend this kind of money and time on principle. It will be very satisfying if the RIAA loses this one, and her lawyers think they don’t have a case, so fingers crossed. If anyone knows of a way to donate to her cause please let me know, I looked but couldn’t find anything.

This is Super Special Video Edition of Thing a Week. Some of you will no doubt be watching this on the new video iPod you got for Christmas – the rest of you, maybe you shouldn’t have married a cheapskate. I won’t explain too much about it here, except to say that it’s an example of what Creative Commons licensing makes possible. I was able to do this without calling any lawyers or receiving any cease and desist letters, because all these photos were published on Flickr with CC licenses that let me know it was OK to use them this way. No doubt you’ve finished your Christmas shopping already, but if you forgot to get something for The World, maybe you should take a moment to CC license something you created and release it into the wild…

I cannot avoid sharing this will all of you. Mark sends me this link via here. Come on Ikea, maybe you want to run it by an English speaker before you put it in the US catalog? And not for nothing, but what the hell kind of piece of furniture is that?